Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!

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… the ELCA has succumbed to the same ailment as liberal Protestantism. What is that? Modern Protestantism is an amalgamation of historic Christianity and the principles of the Enlightenment, its rationalism, subjectivism, and anthropocentrism. The underlying assumption is the neo-gnostic belief in the inner-dwelling of God, such that everyone is endowed with the inner light that only needs to be uncovered. The light of truth does not shine through the Scriptures and the Christian tradition as much as through scientific reason and individual experience. This is what happened in Minneapolis: appeals to reason and experience trumped Scripture and tradition, punctuated with pious injunctions of Lutheran slogans and clichés. The majority won. And they said it was the work of the Spirit, forgetting that the Holy Spirit had already spoken volumes through the millennia of Scriptural interpretation, the councils of the church, and its creeds and confessions.

It is not meet, right, and salutary that this assembly vote on God’s commandments as understood by the one, holy, catholic church throughout 2000 years. The Word of God should not be put to vote. The great orthodox churches of the world do not even consider the changes we have in mind.

Voting on these matters is doubly problematic because we have no compelling biblical or confessional grounds, nor anything approaching a consensus, to make these momentous changes. Thischurch should not vote on the binding teaching of thechurch. If it does, this church may soon find itself outside of thechurch.